The National Recycling Coalition (NRC) and its partners have reformatted the National Zero Waste Conference as a virtual conference, now scheduled for December 1-3, 2020. The original in-person conference set for March 2020 in Berkeley, California was originally postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
The original 32 hours of sessions will be restructured to fit into half-day programs, with some of them now to be featured in a limited webinar series extending from late August through the fall. Each day of the conference will be organized by theme, with December 1 focused on Zero Waste Businesses and December 2 centered around Zero Waste Communities. December 3 will feature the first National Recycling Congress since 2008, with programming focused on broader topics including recycling market development, composting and single use plastics. The conference will also feature a virtual expo hall with a new interactive online platform, Remo, allowing vendors and attendees to network with video chat, screen share, videos and in other ways.
"Zero Waste programs are the quickest, most effective way for communities, businesses and institutions to help meet the challenge of climate change. This Conference is for those working to implement real Zero Waste programs that follow the Zero Waste definition and principles developed by the Zero Waste International Alliance," said Gary Liss, NRC Conference Co-Chair and Vice President of Zero Waste USA.
Programming will kick-off in late August with the first of 6 bi-weekly webinars. Included in the conference registration cost, the webinars will feature topics and speakers originally planned as breakout sessions from the in-person conference. The first program on August 27 will be "Who Is At The Table? Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Waste and Recycling", which is being organized by partner organization, Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA) in coordination with the NRCDiversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. The following program, "Product Policies" will take place on September 10.
